The pièce de résistance of jazz campus radio in Canada

For a refresher on Canadian campus and community radio (and my interest in the subject), you can refer to yesterday's Update.

I set out to learn: how high is the bar? Can we look at these albums and see what it takes to be a charting artist, as the publicists would like to call you?

We sort of can. At the bottom of this Update you'll find the median Bandcamp sales and Spotify monthly listener figures for the jazz albums currently on the campus radio charts.

But there's one thing I found that amused me most of all. It's an impressive integration, you might say.

Yesterday, we went through ten Canadian jazz albums out of 20 that are charting this week; the following are the other ten.

10 more Canadian jazz albums charting this week

A Porta Aperta by Karl Silveira

My review | Bandcamp | Spotify | Artist: Karl Silveira plays trombone

A Night at the Espresso by Tom Keenlyside

My review | Bandcamp | Spotify | Label: Cellar

Song Within the Story by James Brown

Bandcamp | Spotify | Artist: James W. Brown

Joyride (self-titled album)

My review | No Bandcamp | Spotify | Artist: Joyride

The Next Step by Roberto Occhipinti

Bandcamp | Spotify | Label: Modica Music, which Roberto Occhipinti runs; however, the label also has other artists

Future Moons by Adams, Dunn & Haas

Bandcamp | No streaming | Label: Ansible Editions in Toronto

The Artist by John Lee

My review | Bandcamp | Spotify | Label: Cellar

Ravel Inspirations by Jean Félix Mailloux & Cordâme

Bandcamp | Jean Félix Mailloux on Spotify | Cordâme on Spotify | Artist: Jean Félix Mailloux

Escale by Carl Mayotte

Bandcamp | Spotify | Label: Analekta in Montréal

Nuna by David Virelles

Bandcamp | No streaming for this album | Label: Pi Recordings in New York

Numbers

Bandcamp

• Majority are on Bandcamp: 17 of the 20 albums (85%)
• Median number of collections is 10
• Big outlier: Nuna by David Virelles is in 153 Bandcamp collections; no one else has more than 30. David also has two previous albums with over 200+ collections each

Spotify

• Majority are on Spotify: 17 of the 20 albums (85%)
• Median monthly listener figure is 108
• Big outlier: The Artist by John Lee has a monthly listener figure of over 57,000, more than double that of everyone else combined. How did he do it? This playlist.

And now the pièce de résistance

The Orange Grove Publicity effect

• Orange Grove Publicity is the main jazz publicity firm in Canada (disclosure: I was a client in 2020)
• They have a radio program where they play their clients' music
• The radio program is on CFUV, which has an Earshot chart
• 6 of the 10 charting jazz albums at CFUV are their clients

Nice work if you can get it!

In all seriousness: the typical jazz album on these charts earns only 10 Bandcamp sales or 100 monthly listeners for the artist. You're aspiring for better than that, and the chart won't get you beyond those marks.

Canadian campus and community radio – though hosted and produced by nice people, in all likelihood – is a tiny and esoteric cottage industry.

But you knew that already.